


the crooked kind

by darrenjolras



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: M/M, Masturbation, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, but mostly hickey making implications about crozier & jopson etc, hickey's about to hang and decides to use this time to get under jopson's skin, i didn't know whether to tag this as hickey/jopson i just like their contrast, other people have done this before so i can't be the only person beguiled by that scene, so:
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 18:33:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21673069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darrenjolras/pseuds/darrenjolras
Summary: “You and I, Jopson,” Hickey says, and Jopson startles at those words alone, turns an affronted gaze his way. Hickey bathes in the glacial blue of it. Like being thrown overboard. “You and I aren’t so different, you know.”Based on that Hickey/Jopson scene. You know the one.the terror bingo fill: court martial
Comments: 3
Kudos: 39
Collections: The Terror Bingo (2019)





	the crooked kind

How long does it take to build a gallows? Time has almost congealed in this tent with the waiting; the air is thick as treacle; and the man who calls himself Cornelius Hickey is, frankly, bored of the delay. 

No, Jopson is his only distraction here, and he’s not gotten anything useful from him yet. Tozer’s on his own for now, then, and Hickey’s trust must be in him to have his back when he demands it later. Otherwise, Hickey’s trust is all his own, stored up within himself in steep reserves. He has built it up over time to plumb in moments just like these, when self-assurance is the only means of survival. 

Because there can be no illusion about what is happening, no hesitation. Only a plan, and the stomach to follow it through. Hickey has both, of course. His faith’s a more honest kind than most can claim, being in himself, because he knows who he is. He knows what he is at the very core, knows when the rest falls away he has steel inside. A knife edge kept well-honed and practicable, his best weapon of defence... a way out from even the worst of things. 

And there have been far worse things in his life than this. He’s almost grateful for it now, supposes it gives him a clearer vision of the world and of what man can be. In light of that, what should the pomp of a petty court martial matter to him, here, now? Hickey is no stranger to making a scene, after all, and as long as there is a way to wrest control of it, to take command of the narrative, there will be a way to turn the tide. Talk, see: he’s a natural at it, and Captain Crozier is bad. But the honourable captain has given him a gift, an opportunity instead of the bullet (if Jopson’s right about one thing, it’s that); and so who is Hickey to deny Crozier his crackbrained charity? Let the rest of the camp cling to their delusions of order, rank, and form. Let them obsess over doing things right and justly, over their civilisation, over the bootless idea of ever going _back_. 

(Cornelius Hickey was never going back.) 

So he is free from all that, and free, too, from fear of death. Fear is paralysing, you see. He remembers the feeling from when he was younger - much younger - the way it sets deep and haunting in your bones, the way it freezes up limbs and fogs the mind. Fossilises you. Fails you every time. And now that he’s not in the least afraid of death, he is beginning to think it is afraid of him. Death is already working its way around the camp, see, gnawing slowly but surely. Inevitably, one might say. Is it not strange, then, that it seems not tempted in the least by Hickey? Men are bogged down by all manner of complaints - whether they try to hide them or not - but since the day he was lashed he’s been in better health all the while, is still sharp and upright and present, gleaming with life, almost _lustrous_ with it. Men are dying in droves like they’ve been cursed by a vengeful deity, and Hickey is more alive than he has ever felt, the gallows be damned. There’s a word for this, and he can sense it sometimes like a blinding flash of sunlight in his eyes, gone the next moment but seared bright behind his eyelids. _Invincible_.

It’s obvious, though, isn’t it? This place is made for him.

Even new _Lieutenant_ Jopson, somehow managing to scale the ranks as others fall, is not immune as this place lays waste. 

He is dabbing gingerly at his gums for that soreness, the blackness and blood. Hickey watches this with cat-like indolence from where he lies, an arm propped carelessly behind his head. 

“You and I, Jopson,” Hickey says, and Jopson startles at those words alone, turns an affronted gaze his way. Hickey bathes in the glacial blue of it. Like being thrown overboard. “You and I aren’t so different, you know.”

“There’s nothing alike about us, Mr. Hickey.” Jopson’s tone is cut ice, too. His grasp on the gun doesn’t loosen, like if his patience frays enough, he might just be goaded into shooting it.

Hickey will take his chances.

“Ah, I disagree,” he returns conversationally, like this is a parenthetical debate dredged up over dinner in the mess-hall. “We don’t come from much, but we’ve both made the best of this place, haven’t we?”

A leap of a laugh catches in Jopson’s throat in something like disbelief, his next words laced with irony. “That’s what you call a court-martial, is it? A death sentence is ‘making the best of it’? Though I suppose it’s a feat it hasn’t come sooner for you. You’ve been asking for it since you set foot on _Terror_.” 

“Now, Jopson, mind your manners,” Hickey chides him, a smile still playing on his lips. “With the loss of dear Lieutenant Irving, you might be in line for another promotion. You wouldn’t want to risk that.” By all accounts, Cornelius has done Jopson a personal favour, getting rid of him.

The newest lieutenant is clearly unimpressed. “I see you, Mr. Hickey. I see what you are.” There it is again, that tone of self-righteous disgust. _God sees you_. _I see you_. 

That’s the problem, though. Not that they’re judging him, that they imagine they have any right to: it’s that they look at him, look right through him, and even in their most penetrating attempts, they don’t see him at all. Their looks bounce straight off the surface, like a skimming stone across water, like light off a mirror. There is grime smeared across their eyes, and it’s left them blind to what he really is. A caulker’s mate? A petty officer? A mutineer, a base murderer? An _inconvenience_? They’ve done him wrong, all this time. If anyone should feel offended here, it’s certainly not Jopson.

He had thought Crozier saw him true, once. Had hoped, maybe; he won’t deny it. That day in the captain’s quarters, Crozier gloomily leant over his charts, confiding in him his doubts, allowing Hickey to reassure him that he was not the only one to see what must be done. They had bonded, then. Crozier had seemed to understand perception holding back a man’s rank, circumstances weighted against someone. Had seemed to see the merit in him in spite of it. 

A shame the captain has proven himself so weak, in the end, and merit wasn’t enough. Boldness and enterprise should have secured Hickey his good graces, but all Crozier has ever wanted to see is insubordination in it, and not a stratagem set to ensure their survival. Crozier has always been a slave to more than he let on. 

Cornelius supposes he should’ve tried Jopson’s path of obsequiousness and flattery, and signed up as a steward.

“I could have done your job instead,” he asserts. “I thought about it once, back when I met Crozier that day. Picked up some dog shit off his floor for him. He was quite grateful.” 

“He’d have been grateful if you’d actually fixed that draught you were there to caulk,” Jopson says acidly.

“Not so grateful as I’m sure he was for you during his nasty little bout of _gastritis_ ,” Hickey continues, with a sardonic twist of his mouth. Who aboard could have fallen for that excuse for the captain’s incapacity? “More than Neptune’s messes you were cleaning up then, I bet.”

He can sense a retort on Jopson’s lips - something like _what do you know about looking after anyone,_ or _I feel sorry for Gibson having to clean up after you,_ maybe - but whatever it is, he bites it back and instead Hickey must be satisfied with witnessing the way his fists clench a little tighter. Crozier, then. Talking of Crozier riles him.

How fantastically predictable. 

“One had to wonder what else you were doing for the captain in private,” Hickey suggests, inspecting his nails on one hand as he deliberately slides his other hand further down the front of his trousers. “‘Course, I don’t like to listen to gossip,” - Jopson grants him a barely suppressed snort at that - “but there was just so _much_ of it when it came to you and him.” 

Jopson’s attempts to ignore him are delightful. He will only look guiltier of these implications if he determines to look away, but keeping his gaze trained here will make him an assenting audience to just what Hickey is doing with his hand.

“I hear you were quite _talented_ ,” he drawls slowly. “Not just with boots and buttons. Didn’t you spend a disproportionate amount of your time on duty on your knees?”

No answer. Naturally. “I imagine Fitzjames had a part in it, whether you were doing the same for him or he was doing it for Crozier -” Hickey posits, letting his musing unravel faster, before Jopson can prevent him, “- and Lieutenant Little must’ve been quite jealous, though of whom I’m not certain.” He laughs at the thought, almost wishes he’d known quite how many of the men on _Terror_ might’ve been persuaded to his ends by some delicately-arranged indecency earlier. To think he’d picked Billy too soon (and with so little effort), when he could have aimed much higher, and fashioned himself a different route up the ladder. And never mind higher - he should’ve just gotten into bed with a different steward after all. Look how bloody far Jopson has come. 

“The other officers might’ve been too prudish to notice, perhaps, though I don’t doubt Hodgson picked up pederasty along with his Greek,” he adds jauntily, “and... as for Irving, well I’m astounded he didn’t catch on. Probably better that he didn’t, though; he’d have dropped dead immediately from the horror, God bless him.”

There is a certain rapture in profaning John Irving’s name now, with what else he has so recently succeeded in doing to him.

The man across the tent is possibly thinking about that too, sitting stiff and straight-backed and looking sickened.

“You seemed to enjoy bending over a table for a lashing a curious amount,” Jopson says viciously. 

“Yeah, but I didn’t fancy spending three winters bent over a table,” Hickey answers breezily. “But you were already pretty used to it by then, I think.” 

“Shut your mouth, Hickey.” 

“A little too good at taking orders, Lieutenant,” he taunts. “Not so good at giving them.”

“You don’t know a thing about me.” Jopson looks as though he might spring to his feet in a second. “But orders be damned, I will shoot you without regret.”

“Come on, Thomas,” Hickey coaxes in honeyed tones, letting the first name roll experimentally from his tongue. He can tell Jopson doesn’t like that. Amazing what he can do with so little work.

But he is certain he can do better than that. 

“You ever been down along Regent’s Canal?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“It's not a hard one, Jopson. Regent's Canal. I know you have.” There is a glitter of menace in Hickey’s eye, a small seed of triumph. “I even saw you there, once.”

“You’re accusing me of being in London?” Jopson asks, a terseness in his voice and a tautness in his face that signals a wish for this conversation to be over. “Really?” 

“Oh no,” Hickey says mildly. “It was only an observation. There were a lot of things to observe down along that end of the canal, actually, if you knew where to look. A lot of shabby joints round there. A lot of _men_. Not the sorts of people you’d want your mother to know you were meeting, I’m sure. But your mother wasn’t around by that point, was she?” Hickey ventures carefully; because between lurking around London then, with his eye on a young Irishman, and his time aboard _Terror_ , he has patched together a pretty picture of most men and their pasts. He listens and learns, and has always been good at reading people. That’s because when _he_ looks, he _sees_.

“So the captain’s quarters aren’t the only den of iniquity in the world. What did you do then, but throw yourself into the company of deviants? Everyone has to find relief for their sorrows somewhere. There’s no harm in losing your way. You might have even made a living from your habits, too, with a pretty face like yours. All _manner_ of deviants there.”

“You seem to know an awful lot about it.” There’s a fury raging in Jopson’s veins now; even bridled, it can be felt. A surge of passion. He almost wishes Jopson would lunge for him, and show it properly. 

With this smile, Hickey bares his teeth. “Takes one to know one.”

The motions of his hand are faster now, more urgent.

Jopson speaks through gritted teeth. “We are not the same.”

“You keep telling yourself that, Jopson,” Hickey declares. “Pretend you don’t see it. A different twist of fate here or there, and you could have been me. I could have been you. Don’t worry. I’ll take your secret to the grave.”

Jopson lurches up, eyes blazing.

“Give me a hand, if you like,” Hickey breathes. In a moment, his hand stills, his eyes half-closed, his chest rising and falling heavily. 

“I’ll give you a hand, Mr. Hickey,” Jopson snarls, hoisting Cornelius up unceremoniously by the scruff of his shirt before he has had nearly enough time to bask in the moment. “You can count on that. I’ll personally volunteer to be the hand that puts the noose around your neck.”

Hickey could, if he wanted, draw his knife to curve about his throat in recompense. But he can be as magnanimous as anyone, so he doesn’t need the last word here. 

All he has to do is keep his head up high, his wits about him, take whatever comes next in his stride. He will do what it takes, and that, it seems, is enough to scare them all. 

He will swallow the world whole with a smile.


End file.
